Capcom confirms fans waiting to play Mai Shiranui are going to be doing so for quite a while in Street Fighter 6

If there was any hope for a December launch before

After more than 35 years, Street Fighter is doing something the series never has before by bringing in not one but two outside guest characters into the new game.

Between SNK’s Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui, however, it looks like only the former is on the somewhat immediate horizon for Street Fighter 6 Season 2.

Capcom made a new post on social media tonight that confirms Mai, the Alluring Kunoichi, won’t be playable in SF6 until early 2025.

Previously, the developers did state that the Shiranui ninja was planned for a Winter 2025 release, but there was still some hope that’d she’d be arriving sooner rather than later.

That’s because “Winter 2025” technically begins in December 2024 though it looks like Mai won’t be visiting for Christmas or New Year’s, leaving Terry by himself with the world warriors.

Since Season 2 content is starting its content release schedule sooner than the first year, we could still at least be looking at a bit less of a wait for Mai and Elena than Ed and Akuma.

Mai, the Alluring Kunoichi.
Arrives in early 2025. pic.twitter.com/q6d76gxUfb

— Street Fighter (@StreetFighter) June 15, 2024

M. Bison is launching on June 26 while Rashid didn’t come until the end of July last year, so Capcom keeps a similar DLC calendar, we can map out some tentative times for when we may see the rest of Season 2.

Moving things a month back from A.K.I. could put Terry’s release sometime around August with Mai in January and Elena around April though that’s just pure conjecture at this point based on last year’s schedule.

That wait between A.K.I. and Ed was particularly long last year as well at around five months between characters, so maybe they’ll keep Terry around September or October to keep a more even spread of content this time around.

It’ll also be interesting to see how Mai’s release lines up with Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves too considering that game is slated with an “early 2025” launch window with that cross promotion between studios going on.

The Street Fighter 6 developers have been talking quite a bit about Terry and Mai’s inclusion as the first guest characters in the series like how they’re approaching bringing their iconic Fatal Fury moves to Street Fighter and the Drive System.

They’ve also answered questions about what this means for a potential Capcom vs. SNK revival, and why the pair were chosen in the first place.

With M. Bison coming soon, Terry Bogard will likely receive at least another teaser with his actual in-game appearance for SF6 next month at Evo 2024 running from July 19–21.